Menstruation is still a taboo subject in many parts of India. We know that every teenager gets their period after puberty, but people don’t want to talk about it. This leads to unhealthy menstrual practices, lack of availability of resources, stigmatizing menstruation and religious and cultural restrictions on menstruating girls.
Menstruating women are often kept away from social and religious events, denied entry into temples and even kitchens. A National Family Health Survey (NFHS) highlighted that only 58% of women aged 15 to 24 in India use clean resources during their menstruation. This is due to lack of awareness and non-availability of sanitary products.
The situation has worsened with the country being hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, women who were getting access to at least some services faced the same situation again. Dr. Ranjana Bacon, Gynecologist at Columbia Asia Hospital, Ghaziabad, said, “A large number of people are living in unhygienic menstrual conditions and devoid of proper menstrual products. The situation has worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. .
Adding to this, he mentioned, “The pandemic has put a lot of financial stress on the people and forced them to shift their priorities like food on buying proper menstrual hygiene material. This makes them highly vulnerable to many deadly diseases, especially in the times of covid. ,
Due to the lack of clean items, there has been a huge disturbance in the menstrual patterns of women, which has led to a major impact of infertility in women. To prevent infertility due to menstrual practices, experts have suggested some remedies.
Dr Aswati Nair, Fertility Consultant at Nova IVF Fertility, New Delhi, said, “Since our periods can sometimes be a sign of infertility, one should pay extra attention to one’s menstrual pattern or cycles and menstrual hygiene. In our country, a variety of factors influence menstrual behavior. The most influential of these are economic status and residential status, whether urban or rural.”
Let us look at some steps to avoid infertility due to bad menstrual practices:
- Create a system for talking about menstruation and access to healthy menstrual knowledge.
- Development and dissemination of sensitive information in a systematic manner to reach parents as well as their adolescent children.
- Providing youth friendly services to adolescents and improving existing resources.
- Educating young girls about the importance of maintaining hygiene during menstruation to prevent the risk of reproductive tract infections.
- Promoting sex education in schools.
- Addressing taboos to have healthy conversations.
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